Long Term Travel, Food Musings, Concerns and Plans

If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, you know that I’ve finally landed in Thailand. Jon and I have been wanting to come to Thailand together since we met 10 years ago. Even though he set out on a year long trek through Asia while we were together, at that time I was only able to join him for a two month stint in India before having to return home and work.

Since then, our lives have been about extricating ourselves from work that would tie us to a location so that we could work from wherever we happen to be, and explore the world together for long periods of time. After 5 years of lose planning, hit and misses and perhaps not the straightest of lines, we’re here and I have to tell you, it’s both surreal and completely right.

I’m sitting here now, typing this, in a cafe in Old Chiang Mai while sipping what has to be some of the best coffee I’ve had in a long time. Wasn’t expecting great coffee in Thailand, to be honest. But this lends to a concern I spent much time ruminating on prior to coming here.

Preparing to come here entailed much. We had to prepare our home for sub leasers, make two separate trips to the mainland for a girly retreat for me, and a WordCamp for both Jon and I. Supplies, clothes, travel bags and a variety of other things needed to be purchased and arranged for. Most importantly for me was the constant thought of food.

Could I find gluten free food easily? What if I couldn’t? Would I be sick for 3-5 months while traveling? What about in places like Laos, which we plan to go to for a couple of weeks by touring the Mekong River?

I’m not going to lie, I had quite a bit of anxiety about all this. I love Thai food, but what I have has drastically reduced in the last few years as I stopped eating gluten. In the end, however, I know there was little I could do but navigate as carefully as possible.

What I did pre trip was stock up on gluten free protein bars to squirrel away in my bag for times when I just couldn’t get to anything I could eat and needed a little something to tie me over. I also spoke to the lovely salesperson in the nutrition isle at Whole Foods for advice on what I could take with me to replace my daily super foods drink. I ended up with a multi vitamin that I can take to give my body a bit of daily support in case I can’t eat much or I become overly glutenized and my body stops absorbing as many nutrients as it normally would from my food. In truth, I’m not a big fan of vitamins in pill form, but this is just easier to travel with than super foods powder.

Here now, I’m remembering my time in India and how much traveled foreign locations offer a massive variety of foods to cater to foreigners. I’ve been here for 3 days so far and food hasn’t been an issue, though I’m getting over a cold and still each time I eat, I’m feeling a bit nauseous afterward. I’m not quite sure what this is about, so keeping an eye on it.

Now that I have my bearings, I’ve scouted out a handful of vegetarian restaurants, will be visiting the lush markets, a farm that teaches permaculture practices and a Thai cooking school. Rest assured, I’ll be sharing it all.